THE NINTH DISCUSSION

To refute their proof that the First is incorporeal

Ghazali says:

There is a proof only for him who believes that body is only
temporal, because it cannot be exempt from what is temporal and everything that
is temporal needs a creator. But you, when you admit an eternal body which has
no beginning for its existence, although it is not exempt from temporal
occurrences, why do you regard it as impossible that the First should be a
body, either the sun, or the extreme heaven, or something else?

If the answer is made ‘Because body must be composite and
divisible into parts quantitatively, and into matter and form conceptually, and
into qualities which characterize it necessarily so that it can be
differentiated from other bodies (for otherwise all bodies in being body would
be similar) and the necessary existent is one and cannot be divided in any of
these ways’ we answer: ‘We have already refuted you in this, and have shown
that you have no proof for it except that a collection is an effect, since some
of its parts require others, and we have argued against it and have shown that
when it is not impossible to suppose an existent without a creator, it is not
impossible to suppose a compound without a composing principle and to suppose
many existents without a creator, since you have based your denial of plurality
and duality on the denial of composition and your denial of composition on the
denial of a quiddity distinct from existence, and with respect to the last
principle we have asked for its foundation and we have shown that it is a mere
presumption. ‘

And if it is said: ‘If a body has no soul, it cannot be an
agent, and when it has a soul, well, then its soul is its cause, and then body
cannot be the First’, we answer: ‘Our soul is not the cause of the existence of
our body, nor is the soul of the sphere in itself a cause of its body,
according to you, but they are two, having a distinct cause; and if they can be
eternal, it is possible that they have no cause. ‘

And if the question is asked, ‘How can the conjunction of soul
and body come about? ‘, we answer, ‘One might as well ask how the existence of
the First comes about; the answer is that such a question may be asked about
what is temporal, but about what is eternally existent one cannot ask how it
has come about, and therefore” since body and its soul are both eternally
existent, it is not impossible that their compound should be a creator. ‘

I say:

When a man has no other
proof that the First is not body than that he believes that all bodies are
temporal, how weak is his proof, and how far distant from the nature of what
has to be proved!-since it has been shown previously that the proofs on
which the theologians build their statement that all bodies are temporal are
conflicting; and what is more appropriate than to regard an eternal composite
as possible, as I said in this book when speaking of the Ash’arites, i. e. in
saying that according to them an eternal body is possible, since in the
accidents there is some eternal element, according to their own theory, for
instance, the characteristic of forming a compound; and therefore their proof
that all bodies are temporal is not valid, because they base it exclusively on
the temporal becoming of the accidents. ‘ The ancient philosophers do not allow
for the existence of a body eternal through itself, but only of one eternal
through another, and therefore according to them there must be an existent
eternal through itself through which the eternal body becomes eternal. But if
we expound their theories here, they have only a dialectical value, and you
should therefore instead ask for their proofs in their proper place.

And as to Ghazali’s refutation of this, and his words:

We answer: ‘We have already refuted you in this, and we have
shown that you have no proof for this except that a collection is an effect,
since some of its parts require others.

I say:

He means that he has
discussed this already previously, and he says that the philosophers cannot
prove that the existent necessary through itself is not a body, since the
meaning of ‘existent necessary through itself’ is ‘that which has no efficient
cause’, and why should they regard an eternal body which has no efficient cause
as impossible-and especially when it should be supposed to be a simple
body, indivisible quantitatively or qualitatively, and in short an eternal
composite, without a composing principle? This is a sound argument from which
they cannot escape except through dialectical arguments. z But all the
arguments which Ghazali gives in this book
either against or on behalf of the philosophers or against Avicenna are
dialectical through the equivocation of the terms used, and therefore it is not
necessary to expatiate on this.

And as to his answer on
behalf of the Ash’arites that what is eternal through itself does not need a
cause for its eternity, and that when the theologians assume something eternal
through itself and assume its essence as the cause of its attributes, this
essence does not become eternal because of something else,

I say:

It is a necessary
consequence to be held up against Ghazali that
the Eternal will be composed of a cause and an effect, and that the attributes
will be eternal through their cause, i. e. the essence. And since the effect is
not a condition for its own existence, the Eternal is the cause. And let us say
that the essence which exists by itself is God and that the attributes are
effects; then it can be argued against the theologians that they assume one
thing eternal by itself and a plurality of things eternal through another, and
that the combination of all these is God. But this is exactly their objection
against those who say that God is eternal through Himself and the world eternal
through another, namely God. Besides, they say that the Eternal is one, and all
this is extremely contradictory.

And as to Ghazali’s statement that to assume a compound without
the factor which composes it, is not different from assuming an existent
without a creator, and that the assumption either of a single existent of this
description or of a plurality is not an impossible supposition for the mind,
all this is erroneous. For composition does not demand a composing factor which
again itself is composed, but there must be a series leading up to a composing
factor composing by itself, just as, when the cause is an effect, there must
finally be a cause which is not an effect. Nor is it possible, by means of an
argument which leads to an existent without a creator, to prove the oneness of
this existent. ‘

And as to his assertion
that the denial of the quiddity implies the denial of the composition, and that
this implies the assertion of composition in the First, this is not true. And
indeed the philosophers do not deny the quiddity of the First, but only deny
that it has the kind of quiddity which is in the effects, and all this is a
dialectical and doubtful argument. And already previously in this book we have
given convincing arguments, according to the principles of the philosophers, to
prove that the First is incorporeal, namely that the possible leads to a
necessary existent and that the possible does not proceed from the necessary
except through the mediation of an existent which is partly necessary, partly
possible, and that this is the body of the heavens and its circular motion; and
the most satisfactory way of expressing this according to the principles of the
philosophers is to say that all bodies are finite in power, and that they only
acquire their power of infinite movement through an incorporeal being. ‘

Ghazali answering the objection
which infers that according to the philosophers the agent is nothing but the
sphere, composed of soul and body, says:

If it is answered: ‘This cannot be so, because body in so far as
it is body does not create anything else and the soul which is attached to the
body does not act except through the mediation of the body, but the body is not
a means for the soul in the latter’s creating bodies or in causing the
existence of souls and of things which are not related to bodies’, we answer:
‘And why is it not possible that there should be amongst the souls a soul which
has the characteristic of being so disposed that both bodies and incorporeals
are produced through it? The impossibility of this is not a thing known
necessarily, nor is there a proof for it, except that we do not experience this
in the bodies we observe; but the absence of experience does not demonstrate
its impossibility, and indeed the philosophers often ascribe things to the
First Existent which are not generally ascribed to existents, and are not
experienced in any other existent, and the absence of its being observed in
other things is not a proof of its impossibility in reference to the First
Existent, and the same holds concerning the body and its soul. ‘

I say:

As to his assertion that
bodies do not create bodies, if by ‘creating’ is understood producing, the
reverse is true, for a body in the empirical world can only come into being
through a body, , and an animated body only through an animated body, but the
absolute body does not come into being at all, for, if it did, it would come
into being from non-existence, not after
non-existence. ‘ Individual bodies only come into being out of
individual bodies and through individual bodies, and this through the body’s
being transferred from one name to another and from one definition to another,
so that for instance the body of water changes into the body of fire, because
out of the body of water is transformed the attribute through the
transformation of which the name and definition of water is transferred to the
name and definition of fire, and this happens necessarily through a body which
is the agent, participating with the becoming body specifically or generically
in either a univocal or an analogical ways and whether the individual special
corporeality in the water is transformed into the individual special
corporeality of the fire is a problem to be studied.

And as to Ghazali’s words:

But the body is not a means for the soul in the latter’s
creating bodies or in causing the existence of souls,

I say:

This is an argument
which he builds on an opinion some of the philosophers hold, that the bestower
of forms on inanimate bodies and of souls is a separate substance, either
intellect or a separate soul, and that it is not possible that either an
animated body or an inanimate body should supply this. And if this opinion is
held and at the same time it is assumed that heaven is an animated body, it is
no longer possible for heaven to supply any of the transitory forms, either the
soul or any other of these forms. For the soul which is in the body only acts
through the mediation of the body, and that which acts through the mediation of
the body can produce neither form nor soul, since it is not of the nature of
the body to produce a substantial form, either a soul or any other substantial
form. And this theory resembles that of Plato about forms separate from matter,
and is the in theory of Avicenna and others among the Muslim philosophers;
their proof is that the body produces in the body only warmth or cold or
moisture or dryness, ? and only these are acts of the heavenly bodies according
to them. But that which produces the substantial forms, and especially those
which are animated, is a separate substance which they call the giver of forms.
‘ But there are philosophers’ who believe the contrary and affirm that what
produces the forms in the bodies is bodies possessing forms similar to them
either specifically or generically, those similar specifically being the living
bodies which produce the living bodies of the empirical world, like the animals
which are generated from other animals, whereas those forms produced by forms
generically similar, and which are not produced from a male or a female,
receive their lives according to the philosophers from the heavenly bodies,
since these are alive. And these philosophers have non-empirical proofs
which, however, need not be mentioned here.

And therefore Ghazali argues against them in this way:

And why is it not possible that there should be among the souls
a soul which has the characteristic of being so disposed that both bodies and
incorporeals are produced through it?

I say:

He means: ‘Why should it
not be possible that there should be among the souls in bodies souls which have
the characteristic of generating other animate and inanimate forms? ‘ And how
strange it is that Ghazali assumes that the
production of body out of body does not happen in the empirical world, whereas
nothing else is ever observed.

But you must understand
that when the statements of the philosophers are abstracted from the
demonstrative sciences they certainly become dialectical, whether they are
generally acknowledged, or, if not, denied and regarded as strange. The reason
is that demonstrative statements are only distinguished from statements which
are not demonstrative, by being considered in the genus of science which is
under investigation. Those statements which can be subsumed under the
definition of this genus of science, or which comprise in their definition this
genus of science, are demonstrative, and those statements which do not seem to
fulfil these conditions are not demonstrative. Demonstration is only possible
when the nature of this genus of science under investigation is defined, and
the sense in which its essential predicates exist is distinguished from the
sense in which they do not, and when this is retained in mind by keeping to
that sense in every statement adopted in this science, and by having the
identical meaning always present in the mind. And when the soul is convinced
that the statement is essential to this genus or a necessary consequence of its
essence, the statement is true; but when this relation does not enter into the
mind, or when it is only weakly established, the statement is only an opinion,
and is not evident. And therefore the difference between proof and convincing
opinion is more delicate than the appearance of a hair and more completely
hidden than the exact limit between darkness and light, especially in
theological questions which are laid before the common people, because of the
confusion between what is essential and what is accidental. Therefore we see
that Ghazali, by relating the theories of the
philosophers in this and others of his books and by showing them to people who
have not studied their works with the necessary preparation the philosophers
demand, changes the nature of the truth which exists in their theories or
drives most people away from all their views. And by so doing he does more harm
than good to the cause of truth. And God knows that I should not have related a
single one of their views, or regarded this as permissible, but for the harm
which results from Ghazali’s doings to the
cause of wisdom; and I understand by ‘wisdom’ speculation about things according
to the rules of the nature of proof.

Ghazali says, on behalf of the
philosophers:

If it is said that the highest sphere, or the sun, or whatever
body you may imagine, possesses a special size which may be increased or
decreased, and this possible size needs for its differentiation a
differentiating principle and can therefore not be the First, ‘ we answer: By
what argument will you refute the man who says that this body must have the
size it possesses for the sake of the order of the universe, and this order
could not exist if this body were smaller or larger-since you
philosophers yourselves affirm that the first effect’ determines the size of
the highest sphere because all sizes are equivalent in relation to the essence
of the first effect, but certain sizes are determined for the sake of the order
which depends on them and therefore the actual size is necessary and no other
is possible; and all this holds just as well when no effect is assumed. Indeed,
if the philosophers had established in the first effect, which is according to
the philosophers the cause of the highest sphere, a specifying principle, as
for instance the will, a further question might be put, since it might be asked
why this principle willed this actual size rather than another, in the way the
philosophers argued against the Muslims about their theory of the relation
between the temporal world and the Eternal Will, an argument which we turned
against them with respect to the problems of the determination of the direction
of the heavenly movement and of the determination of the points of the poles.
And if it is clear that they are forced to admit that a thing is differentiated
from a similar one and that this happens through a cause, it is unessential
whether this differentiation be regarded as possible without a cause or through
a cause, for it is indifferent whether one puts the question about the thing
itself and asks why it has such-and such a size, or whether one puts the
question about the cause, and asks why it gave this thing this special size;
and if the question about the cause may be answered by saying that this special
measure is not like any other, because the order depends on it exclusively, the
same answer may be made about the thing itself, and it will not need a cause.
And there is no escape from this. For if the actual size which has been
determined and has been realized were equivalent to the size which has not been
realized, one might ask how one thing comes to be differentiated from a similar
one, especially according to the principle of the philosophers who do not admit
a differentiating will. If, however, there is no similar size, no possibility
exists, and one must answer: ‘This has been so from all eternity, and in the
same way therefore as, according to the philosophers, the eternal cause exists.
“ And let the man who studies this question seek help from what we said about
their asking about the eternal will, a question which we turned against them
with respect to the points of the poles and the direction of the movement of
the sphere. It is therefore clear that the man who does not believe in the
temporal creation of the bodies cannot establish a proof that the First is
incorporeal.

I say:

This indeed is a very strange argument of Ghazali’s. For he argues that they cannot prove
another creator than the heavenly body, since they would have to give an answer
by a principle in which they do not believe. For only the theologians accept
this principle, since they say that heaven receives the determinate size it has,
to the exclusion of other sizes it might have, from a differentiating cause,
and that the differentiating principle must be eternal. He either attempted to
deceive in this matter or was himself deceived. For the differentiation which
the philosophers infer is different from that which the Ash’arites intend, for
the Ash’arites understand by ‘differentiation’ the distinguishing of one thing
either from a similar one or from an opposite one without this being determined
by any wisdom in the thing itself which makes it necessary to differentiate one
of the two opposite things. The philosophers, on the other hand, understand
here by the differentiating principle only that which is determined by the
wisdom in the product itself, namely the final cause, for according to them
there is no quantity or quality in any being that has not an end based on
wisdom, an end which must either be a necessity in the nature of the act of
this being or exist in it, based on the principle of superiority. ‘ For if, so
the philosophers believe, there were in created things a quantity or quality
not determined by wisdom, they would have attributed to the First Maker and
Creator an attitude in relation to His work which may be only attributed to the
artisans among His creatures, with the intention of blaming them. For when one
has observed a work with respect to its quantity and quality, and asked why the
maker of this work chose this quantity or this quality to the exclusion of all
other possible quantities and qualities, there is no worse mistake than to
answer ‘Not because of the intrinsic wisdom and thoughtfulness in the product
itself, but because he willed it, ‘ since according to this view all quantities
and qualities are similar with respect to the end of this product, which in fact
the maker produced for its own sake, namely for the sake of the act for whose
purpose it exists. For indeed every product is produced in view of something in
it which would not proceed from it, if this product had no definite quantity,
quality and nature, although in some products an equivalent is possible. If any
product whatever could determine any act whatever, there would exist no wisdom
at all in any product, and there would be no art at all, and the quantities and
qualities of the products would depend on the whim of the artisan and every man
would be an artisan. Or should we rather say that wisdom exists only in the
product of the creature, not in the act of the Creator? But God forbid that we
should believe such a thing of the First Creator; on the contrary, we believe
that everything in the world is wisdom, although in many things our
understanding of it is very imperfect and although we understand the wisdom of
the Creator only through the wisdom of nature. And if the world is one single
product of extreme wisdom, there is one wise principle whose existence the
heavens and the earth and everything in them need. Indeed, nobody can regard
the product of such wonderful wisdom as caused by itself, and the theologians
in their wish to elevate the Creator have denied Him wisdom and withheld from
Him the noblest of His qualities.